Energy Resources & Access

Read up on the latest titles released by fellows in our Switzer Fellows Book List. This running list includes titles ranging from young adult fiction to socio-environmental research, and from the wildlife of the Northeast to the wildflowers...

An April 2023 study led by Joseph Rand at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, found there are over 10,000 projects representing 1,350 gigawatts (GW) of generator capacity and 680 GW of storage currently in the interconnection queue lines across the United States. Interconnection queues are lists of utility projects that are seeking to connect to the electric grid, and waiting to undergo studies before they can be built.

Climate Policy Lab, directed by Kelly Gallagher, has released the Global Public Energy RD&D Expenditures Database, a comprehensive database covering public expenditures in energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) for countries that have declared an interest in and commitment to innovation in clean energy technologies.

As the nation looks to transition to more forms of renewable energy, the country’s millions of acres of public lands could be key, drawing concerns over how local habitats could be impacted.

“Despite the evidence that environmental permitting is done on time and with little to no litigation while upholding environmental standards, the narrative that permitting reform is needed for clean energy deployment persists.”

“There’s never been a more dynamic or optimistic moment for the U.S. and global energy policy,” Jason writes. “The imperative to simultaneously grow and decarbonize our economy while strengthening national security is the defining challenge of the next 30 years.”

I have a clear memory of the first class that I took on climate change as a college freshman, where I excitedly learned about the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) at which nations gather to negotiate on furthering the aims of the Convention.

Lara Cushing is the lead author of a December 2022 study finding that historical red-lining is associated with fossil fuel power plant siting and present-day inequalities in air pollutant emissions. Read the open-access article in Nature Energy and a summary in Axios.